How IBM and SAP Are Driving Mobility Into the New Economy

Leading enterprises across all industries now recognize digital transformation as imperative to drive efficiency, enhance the customer experience, and ultimately gain a competitive advantage. For many, the path to transformation begins with mobile – a platform that promises a quick return on investment by enabling convenience and adaptability.

A recent IBM survey of global C-suite executives showed that nearly two-thirds of respondents plan to spend at least $5 million on mobility initiatives in 2017, with the pipeline of mobile activity expected to triple by 2018.

Today’s rapidly changing marketplace means mobile innovation must be more than just an app – professionals need a secure, seamless connection to their corporate data to get the job done.

The Simplest Way to Get the Job Done: Go Mobile

Successful enterprise mobility doesn’t just mean making your multi-faceted backend systems available to your employees on a mobile device – realistically, most corporate systems would create too much complexity in a mobile app. The goal is to create simple, easy-to-use, intuitive native mobile apps that streamline a particular job or work process – and can also connect to the corporate network via a cloud platform.

Business leaders must remember that employees are also consumers who are used to quick, efficient mobile apps. People increasingly demand that same mobile experience at work, which is why employees are one of the main driving forces of digital transformation, according to the SAP eBook, The Digital Economy: Reinventing the Business World.

Technology partnerships are addressing this growing demand and expanding their enterprise ecosystems to meet the evolving mobile needs of businesses today. IBM, SAP, and Apple are building on their strategic alliances to create a broader set of mobile capabilities and provide smooth integration with core SAP-supported enterprise processes and data that clients need for results-driven, mobile-led transformation.

The Partnership Potential and the Employee Effect

These tech alliances have the potential to provide employees with enterprise mobile apps that have intuitive and native iOS functionality. The idea behind these evolving agreements is to combine the best of the consumer world with the leading systems in the business world to create the greatest possible user experience.

When you create mobile apps around end users, work processes are transformed – it leads to greater adoption, increased engagement, and more employee satisfaction. For businesses, this means higher productivity, greater cost savings, streamlined workflows, and less employee turnover.

Technology Alliances Expand Mobile Capabilities

IBM and SAP have partnered for more than 40 years to deliver new innovations to customers – including cloud and cognitive powered solutions – that better integrate with SAP environments.

We are now extending our alliance to the mobile landscape with new offerings to deliver accelerated digital transformation with the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS. By combining our joint expertise in enterprise and mobility, IBM and SAP are enabling clients to expand their SAP capabilities through the power of native iOS apps in the following ways:

A rich portfolio of pre-built, industry-specific iOS apps that can be customized by leveraging SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS components for app integration.

A global network of IBM designers, Swift developers, system integrators and testers that can create custom iOS apps specifically designed for integration with SAP systems, and with the SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS, custom apps can be developed quicker with tighter SAP integration.

IBM Mobile at Scale for iOS on SAP offering enables SAP customers to jump-start their transformation with the creation of multiple apps – industry and custom-built – tailored to their specific needs. This is a unique development model that provides a consistent end-to-end engagement experience, where enterprises work with a dedicated team of IBM designers and developers to quickly and efficiently deploy SAP integrated iOS apps, as well as maintain and update apps, over a multi-year period for large-scale transformation.

The Mobile Possibilities are Endless

For IBM and SAP clients, this strong collaboration opens up even more possibilities to increase productivity and drive amazing user experiences. SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS allow easier integration of existing on-premise solutions to MobileFirst for iOS apps. IBM also provides a variety of transformation and orchestration options based on SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Cloud Platform SDK for iOS to realize the true potential of industry focused, user centered pre-built apps.

For a growing number of organizations, mobility will continue to play a significant role in their digital journeys. A complete mobile platform with an integrated approach – from an engaging user experience, to connection, to core business data, to seamless execution and delivery — is essential to drive results. Ultimately, this new IBM-SAP collaboration is about accelerating this journey through innovation and creating an elevated iOS experience where core business processes properly extend to the hands of professionals.

In the last few years, we’ve seen how transformative mobile can be. Four years ago, IBM launched its MobileFirst strategy, establishing a new market focused on mobile solutions that seamlessly sync with backend data for deep, enterprise scale transformation. Through IBM’s partnership with Apple, 3,300 organizations are engaging in mobile strategies that put enterprise data and analytics in the hands of employees to change the way they work. Now, the Apple and SAP partnership is revolutionizing the way mobile apps connect with backend systems. Together, these technology alliances can empower your employees with critical, timely insights to help transform their work experience and move your company forward.
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